On the Road Again....

We are on the road, again. Actually, we are in Park City right now. Currently we are in the middle of downtown. In our nice 1 bedroom condo, courtesy of Marriott. This is a beautiful area. If anyone is in the mood for travel, the prices are nice this time of year (the off season). Right now I'm watching the local Salt Lake City news. The number one news story is the Warriors/Jazz game. The second story is about an 18 year old mother who is on the run with her kids (note the plural). The third story, 10 minutes into the broadcast is about a dog that rides a skateboard. Granted, he's a cute a bulldog, and I am impressed, but still it's only 10 minutes into the broadcast! Channel 2 news at home would be talking about how many homicides happened in the bay area. It's a nice change. Weird, but nice.

We left sunny, hot California yesterday morning. We had our walk-through with the landlord, and then headed east. For some reason, the walk-through was more stressful than I thought it would be. I'm not sure why. Maybe because our cleaning wasn't as thorough as I wanted it to be. Maybe it was lack of sleep. Maybe it was because we didn't have all our stuff out of the house. Who knows. All I know is that a huge weight was lifted as we headed out. The packing and loading is done - all that's left is driving.....

And driving we have done. We did a little over 400 miles the first day, spending the night in lovely downtown Winnemuca, Nevada. Not so bad, actually, except for the breakdown Caitlin had as we were setting up the room. We all went to bed around 10:00. Caitlin was vacillating between crying and screaming. We put her in the pack-and-play, turned off the lights, and got into bed. She continued to cry for a whopping 30 seconds, and fell fast asleep. I felt bad when we had to wake the kids up in the morning. Today we did another 400 miles or so, ending up in Park City. Yesterday we went from the beautiful, green, tree-lined Sierra Nevada mountains in California to the flat, treeless plains of Nevada. No matter what people say though, northern Nevada is so much more interesting to drive through than southern Nevada! Today we went from the dry, green/yellow beauty of Nevada to the salt flats of Utah. The salt is so white and vast that the mirages reflect the surrounding mountains. The smell of the salt flats reminded me of being by the ocean. I kept my eye out for the wharfs and the seagulls, but saw none. After many hours of driving through blinding white flat earth, we rounded the mountains near the Great Salt Lake and into Salt Lake City. It's amazing how diverse one state can be. Salt Lake City is so pretty, and Park City is absolutely beautiful! Yet, just an hour before we were in salt flats! Of course, when you live in the south bay you can be to the beach, the mountains, the redwoods, lakes, or the central valley in a matter of hours. But do most of us take advantage of that? Noooo......

So far we've had a lot of whining and crying from the kids, but it could be a lot worse. Brandon handles things well until he gets tired. Neither one of the kids is able to handle the morning packing routine. All is well with showers, dressing and breakfast - but it all goes down hill after that! The packing of the bags and the loading of the car is the cause of much distress for the youngest members of the family. Brian or I have to take the kids for a walk when the loading happens. Brandon has developed a new skill - crying with his hands in his mouth while talking to us. Nothing he says during that time is comprehensible! We have tried different things to make the drive easier. We keep the kids together for a few hours (one adult drives alone for a couple of hours. So nice. So very, very nice). Then we split the kids up for a couple of hours. Then we put on DVD's for an hour or so. When it is all said and done, I will be glad the drive is done, and we are in our new home (moving truck and stuff there, or not!). It will be nice when the kids can explore and familiarize themselves with their new home. Until then, we will rely on our GPS device (Brian is geeking out with that big time!), kids CD's, portable DVD players (thank you, Michael, for letting us borrow yours!), and prayers to God that we can keep our patience and sanity in tact. Two more days! Tomorrow we drive to Vail, and then straight on to good old B-town! (second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning).